


The heart meant for you

by mistress_of_shadows



Series: miles/scar shiptober challange [20]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, Internalized racism, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 09:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21224030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistress_of_shadows/pseuds/mistress_of_shadows
Summary: Miles is a loving and caring perfect boyfriend when Scar is with him. But when left alone Miles finds himself haunted by doubts and worry, Scar's master notices the difference and decides to address a few thing.





	The heart meant for you

I lean my head on Scar’s shoulder, sitting on the log a ways from the bonfire some people were dancing around. Others talking in large groups. No particular reason for the gathering, simply people wanting to enjoy the warm night. 

“Would you like more roast?” Scar asked. Reaching for the plates on the stone table in front of us. Something that he had made himself, becoming much more comfortable with his alchemy as he used it to help people. Coming to see it as something more than just a tool for destruction. 

“Sure, I'd like more of those round fluffy things too, if there are any left.” I said, sitting up so Scar could stand. 

“I will see if there is any falafel still.” Scar laughed. Kissing my cheek before leaving to go over to where there was still half a boar carcass on a spit, on the other side of the makeshift common area. I smiled as I watched his back, wondering at how I had managed to keep the attention of someone so caring and attractive. I frown as a man came to Scar's side, saying something that made Scar laugh. There was no one around watching me to see the jealously take over my features. I tried so hard to tamp down the feelings.

I didn't want to cut Scar off from other people, horde him only for my own. He was so happy around his own people, happy to help them and be around them. I could never think to take that happiness away from Scar. I also wasn't enough of an ass to try and tell Scar he couldn't have friends. On some level I wanted him to have other people to lean on, and spend time with, but I couldn’t stop these dark ugly emotions anytime I saw Scar laughing with other people. Couldn't help but think what did they have, that I didn't. A suspicion at every interaction that someone was going to try and steal Scar from me, try and claim my ray of sunshine for their own. Another sharp sting of possessiveness going through my heart as the strange man put a hand on Scar’s shoulder, and he did not shake it off. 

“My son, why do you always look at him with such eyes?” Scar’s master, Hamdi, snuck up on me. Sitting next to me without asking permission, though from the pinch of his brow I didn't think telling him no would do much good.

“What? I don't understand what you mean.” I carefully smoothed out my features, a calm mask that had served me well in my years of military service. The priest was not amused at the diversion sighing heavily. 

“You look at him like he could walk away from you at any moment, and decide to pick another to love. Whenever he turns away you shrink, like you are waiting for him to understand every flaw and decide that he would be better off with someone else. Why?” Hamdi gave me no room to slip out of the question. I averted my eyes to the fire guiltily, ashamed to have been understood so easily. Hating myself for having such weaknesses. 

“I don't know.” I said. It was a truth, but the silence stretched on as Hamdi waited for me to expand on the thought. To explain myself further. He was the high priest of the local temple for a reason, that reason being that he understood people as well as he did his scriptures. “Maybe because there are so many people that would be better for Amal. That would understand his culture, and he wouldn't have to hold hands with as he explained the simplest of ideas like talking to a child. Someone that was full Ishvalan not a,” I bite my tongue before the word mongrel slipped out. That was not a conversation I wanted to have. Deep, long held wounds I wasn't ready to have poked at. 

“Do you not see how my student looks at you? The love and adoration that he shows to no one else? Do you think he considers you a child simply because you were not raised to believe as he was? Do you think anyone here considers you less than the rest of us because you have more than one race in your veins? Or is that you believe the lies you have been told all your life?” Hamdi asked, and I bit my lip. Not wanting to continue the conversation, but unwilling to disrespect my elder by walking away from him. I’d heard some found comfort in the quick and sure way Hamdi could understand you, and what troubled you. But to me his ease in finding the feelings I tried to hide more like hot needles in my skin than a help. 

“I see someone that lost his way, and though himself deserving nothing but death. Not understanding his own worth and brilliance; and see how he could so easily think himself not deserving of the best of someone. Better than me.” I said, maybe if I spoke the truth the priest would understand there was nothing that could be fixed, and move along. 

“And why do you not see the irony in that statement, when you yourself are at this moment underestimating your own value?” Hamdi hummed. I want to pull at my own hair in frustration. I glanced at Scar, still deep in conversation with the stranger. While it made my skin crawl I was glad he wasn't here to listen to the conversation. 

“Because I am not the wife he deserves. I cannot give him children, I cannot simply quit my job and be at home tending to the house, and caring for him like one should. He deserves everything, and there is so much I cannot give.” I put my head in my hands. That was one of my bigger worries, waiting for when Scar would figure out that I loved my work as part of the military too much to ever be the dutiful spouse that he would eventually want. That I couldn't give him a family and Scar would come to resent me for it. Hamdi burst into laughter, throwing his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. 

“My son, I have known the man you call Amal and Scar for many years, since he was a young boy. He has never once looked at women the way he does men. He has no want of a wife, and never has. There is nothing wrong with loving as the two of you do, and if you want children there are plenty in need of fathers.” Hamdi was still laughing, but I was fairly confident that it wasn't actually at me. I was too stunned by his words to care much.

Scar had often tried to convince me that he had no need of a wife, or anything more then what I would give him, but I hadn't believed. Wasn't the traditional family what everyone wanted? No one had ever really commented on our relationship, I had assumed it was because they would rather ignore the existence of it. 

“But isn't that normal, to want to have children of your own blood and a woman that will care for your every need and tend to the house?” I sputtered. I knew that not all women wanted to stay at home and be nothing more than mothers. The General long ago absolving me of any such notions of fragile femininity, but wasn't it what a man should want? Didn't it mean that there was something wrong with me for not wanting that? 

“Who told you that? Normal is what we decide for ourselves. Some want as you describe. Sometimes a man wants the chance to tend to home and family, while a woman has no such interests. A family can mean so much more than one man and one woman.” I refused to look anywhere but the dirt as I shrugged. Having no reply, and trying to process everything Hamdi just said.

He was an important cultural leader here, many people looked to him for guidance and understanding. I couldn't brush off his words as a crazy man trying to comfort me disingenuously. Hamdi always spoke the truth. Yet it was at such a distance from what I had been told from anyone else that I found it hard to believe.

“You have much to learn my son.” Hamdi squeezed me comfortingly with the arm over my shoulder. I wanted to shrink away from the man. I could never escape the feeling of being a step out of time with everyone else, though I was slightly more comfortable surrounded by people that looked the same as me, I still wasn't one of them and never would be. I wasn’t sure how much of what he said I could actually apply to myself. 

“And that's why one day Amal will get tired of me, and find someone else.” I said, kicking a rock. By now it was clear Hamdi was not going to go away, so I might as well just admit how I felt. Perhaps this was how he got so many to confess to him, simply refusing to leave things be. 

“I don't know how things are in other parts of Amestris, but here in Ishval we do not love so weakly. We love with all that we are, unconditionally. It is not to say lovers never drift apart, because some people are not meant to be together. But he loves you with every ounce of his being.” Hamdi said. A sad note creeping into his voice. I snorted at his words. Unconditional love was a myth, a lesson I had learned well by now. 

“There is no such thing as unconditional love. Not from partners, not from parents, not from anyone.” I scoffed, still not looking at Hamdi, couldn't look at anything but the ground as I shared and old wound. “My parents were the first to teach me that. They were less than accepting of my choice in lovers. They hadn't out right kicked me out of the house, but sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been better.” I paused to clear my throat. Tears prickling in my eyes, Which I brushed away harshly. Thinking myself past caring about this.

“Mother had sobbed like I was dying, but would still talk to me. Ask every so often if I was over my affliction, and when I would take a wife. Father had almost outright disowned me, wouldn’t look at me and only talking to me if there was no other choice. I’m still not sure which reaction was worse.” I had joined the military shortly after that, and had rarely contacted my parents since. My mother the only one that would respond to or send letters, but always with the notion that at some point I would come to my senses and have a wife. 

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that. No one should be rejected by their parents, it is a horribly cruelty. It was not a choice you made to love men, it is how you are meant to be. Ishvala gave you the heart you would need in life, and it was the heart of someone that finds love in his own kind.” Hamdi pulled me into a hug so tight my ribs creaked, yet I found more comfort in the gesture than I had anything else in my life. Hesitantly, I returned the hug, and leaned my head on his shoulder, letting a few sobs slip free. 

“Miles? What's wrong? Did something happen?” Scar’s voice was suddenly so close. I pulled away from Hamdi, wiping my eyes clear of tears quickly. 

“Nothing. It's nothing, Hamdi was just helping clear up things for me?” I avoided. Smiling up at Scar as I took the plate from him, chuckling as I saw a small mound of falafel and some scraps of boar.

“I will leave you the two of you to enjoy your evening, but Miles know that my door is always open if you need more clarifications.” Hamdi said as he stood and bowed, a smile on his lips as he faded into the crowd. Scar sat next to me, an arm around my waist and pressing against me. Worried about me, but not wanting to push me. I melted into him with a sigh. Picking at the rest of my meal, loving that he was so thoughtful. My heart was considerably lighter than it had been in a long time.

I might have to consider letting Hamdi help me with a few of the personal demons I had thought impossible to be rid of. Like Scar was so keen on saying, all things were possible through the love of Ishvala and I was interested in testing the truth of that statement.

**Author's Note:**

> For as confident as Miles always appears in the cannon, I find it hard to not think he wouldn't have some amount of internal issues about his race. When he looks like one race, that is so poorly looked upon by most, yet also having many races flow through him. A kind if dissonance from not being a full part of anything. Anyways if you have things you want to say put them in the tags.


End file.
